Linux Room

1. Why linux
2. Distros -
- 2.1. Guides
- 2.2. Cool distros
-
3. GUI apps -
- 3.1. Claws mail
- 3.2. Emacs
- 3.3. SpaceFM -
  - 3.3.1. Encrypted partitions in spaceFM
  - 3.3.2. sftp
  -
- 3.4. mpv
- 3.5. Liferea
- 3.6. ePDFViewer
-
4. Web browsers -
- 4.1. Icecat -
  - 4.1.1. Installing
  - 4.1.2. Hardening
  -
- 4.2. Palemoon and Basilisk -
  - 4.2.1. Hardening
  -
- 4.3. Ungoogled chromium
- 4.4. librewolf
-
5. Command line -
- 5.1. Alacritty
- 5.2. zsh
- 5.3. vim
-
6. Extras -
- 6.1. lite-xl
- 6.2. vlc
- 6.3. Evolution
-

1. Why linux

-I have always liked being able to customize, mod, and poke inside -different things. Computers are machines for us to play around with and -use how we see fit yet the only thing the big tech companies want to do -it lock everything up and it disgusts me. Fuck google, fuck microsoft, -fuck apple, and fuck all the other evil tech companies!!! Its time for -the open source revolution and seize them all and open source the entire -world!!! Without linux or any other unix life would be much much worse. -Linux is my safe place from all the shit in the world. -

- - -

2. Distros

-I will distro hop a bit though for the most part I like to stay with the -same distro and just change DE's or WM's. For the longest time I just -switched to a different fedora spin every so often. Now I use arch -because I got tired of fedora and couldnt find a distro I liked so I -switched to arch to make it feel the way I want. -

2.1. Guides

2.2. Cool distros

-Not including the guides -

- -

3. GUI apps

-A lot of linux users dont like GUI apps. I think they are great -when they are done right. -

3.1. Claws mail

-I have used thunderbird in the past though like I said before -mozilla is evil as fuck. -Through the power of actually following the unix philosophy and -not being full of javascript bullshit claws is about the safest email -client out there. Gone are the days of just clicking a email being -enough to fuck you over. Anyways you likely noticed that claws just -displays everything in plain text. I like using the dillo plugin for a -nicer view, and guess what? Still no shitty javascript that can get you -fucked! -

3.2. Emacs

-Don't use emacs. Its stupido.
-
-That is and will always be true but lately as of writing this I been bit -by the emacs bug. Using emacs is so bad and so wrong but feels so good -to use. I defeated rsi by doing hand exercises for nearly a year and a -half as of writing this. I had to learn the hard way being a guitarist -and emacs user while taking CS classes and writing code all the time -wasnt a good idea. Now I play bass to but it balances out because I -switched over to IT and became too lazy to write code most of the time. -I lost my lite weight hand exercise tools and instead of buying new ones -I just started using the heavy ones for hours at a time until I had the -grip strength to crush a human skull. Now my rsi is cured as long as I -keep up the exercises.
-
-I dont use doom emacs, spaceacs… or any of that bullshit. Just good old -gnu emacs with a simple config and a hand full of plugins.
-Some of my favorite are: -

- -

Ivy: it makes emacs feel a bit nicer without completely changing it by -much.
Company with eglot: a easy way to add good auto-complete and lsp -support. It doesnt bloat the system up too much and it adds much -faster and better auto-complete then what any standard ide has and it -doesnt get in the way.
nyan-mode: this plugin will change your life. Emacs isnt even usable -without it. This plugin is the biggest reason I use emacs. Take that -vim users!

- -

-Fun fact: I use emacs to work on this site. -

3.3. SpaceFM

-For the longest time I just used thunar because its decent and default -in xfce though I decided to give spaceFM a try as of writing this. I -might got annoyed of it in a week and ditch it or end up really liking -it. These kinds of things tend to go either way for me. I will either -fucking hate it or wonder how I ever lived without it.
-Update: After using it for a little bit I really dig it and never want -to go back. -

3.3.1. Encrypted partitions in spaceFM

-SpaceFM doesnt support encrypted partitions by default but lucky for us -its very customizable. To get encrypted disks working I use udisks2 and -udiskie. -

- -

Install udisks2 and udiskie.
Go to xfce session and startup than add the command udiskie -s as a -autostarted app. The -s option makes udiskie show a tray icon and hide -it when there arent any disks. -t will show the tray all the time and -by default udiskie will not show a tray.
In spaceFM go to Devices->Settings->Device Handlers and add a new -handler:
-Whitelist: crypto_LUKS
-Mount: udiskie-mount %v
-Unmount: udiskie-umount $(lsblk -n -o MOUNTPOINT %v)

3.3.2. sftp

-Spacefm uses sshfs for sftp support. Once you install it you will be -ready to rock. Though for my use case I need symlink support. sshfs -needs to have the option -o follow_symlinks To support symlinks. -To add the option go to Devices->Settings->Protocol Handlers->ssh and -change the mount option to: -


-#!/bin/bash

-

-[[ -n "$fm_url_user" ]] && fm_url_user="${fm_url_user}@"

-[[ -z "$fm_url_port" ]] && fm_url_port=22

-echo ">>> sshfs -o follow_symlinks -p $fm_url_port $fm_url_user$fm_url_host:$fm_url_path %a"

-echo

-# Run sshfs through nohup to prevent disconnect on terminal close

-sshtmp="$(mktemp --tmpdir spacefm-ssh-output-XXXXXXXX.tmp)" || exit 1

-nohup sshfs -o follow_symlinks -p $fm_url_port $fm_url_user$fm_url_host:$fm_url_path %a &> "$sshtmp"

-err=$?

-[[ -e "$sshtmp" ]] && cat "$sshtmp" ; rm -f "$sshtmp"

-[[ $err -eq 0 ]]  # set error status

-

-# Alternate Method - if enabled, disable nohup line above and

-#                    uncheck Run In Terminal

-# # Run sshfs in a terminal without SpaceFM task.  sshfs disconnects when the

-# # terminal is closed

-# spacefm -s run-task cmd --terminal "echo 'Connecting to $fm_url'; echo; sshfs -p $fm_url_port $fm_url_user$fm_url_host:$fm_url_path %a; if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then echo; echo '[ Finished ] Press Enter to close'; else echo; echo 'Press Enter to close (closing this window may unmount sshfs)'; fi; read" & sleep 1
-

3.4. mpv

-I switched to mpv because vlc was acting weird with audio sometimes when -watching anime and nothing in this world is worse then something getting -in the way of anime time! Just like lite-xl and neovim mpv uses lua for -its config files and is really simple by default. It also can play -youtube videos or other online streams just by giving it a url. -

3.5. Liferea

-Feed readers are one of those things I use on and off. A lot like mail -clients feed readers tend to be very bloated. Liferea is my favorite but -it has always had issues with nvidia drivers until I found out a -trick.
-
-If liferea has issues add this to your /etc/environment and reboot
-WEBKIT_DISABLE_DMABUF_RENDERER=1
-
-Some cool tricks: -

- -

Get this -plugin to find feeds easier.
You can turn youtube channels into rss feeds with -https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id={channel_id}
-This can be done for all your subscriptions with -this script
You can drag and drop youtube urls from your feed reader into mpv so -you can keep up with your subscriptions without even touching -youtube's website.

3.6. ePDFViewer

-I wanted a pdf viewer that was light weight and simple. Being a xfce -user I wanted something that isnt tied to another DE and doesnt uses a -hell ton of dependencies. -

4. Web browsers

-Modern browsers are some of the worse things to every happen. These are -some of the better options out there.
-
-For some resources on browsers check out -spyware watch dog and -dig deeper.
-
-For addons stay away from the mozilla or google bullshit and instead use -something like the gnuzilla thingy. You -can also find addons on mybrowseraddon -than manually install them or something along those lines.
-
-For a dark mode addon stay away from darkreader. Dont know if its -spyware or not but when the browser starts up it makes a bunch of -requests which is something a dark mode plugin shouldnt do. Instead use -something like -dark-mode. -

4.1. Icecat

-I use to use firefox but switched to librewolf because -mozilla is evil as -fuck. If you don't know librewolf it its the ungoogled-chromium of -firefox. Than I switched from librewolf to icecat.
-
-The builtin plugins are decent. Librejs and its other contend blocking -plugins are way more annoying than something like umatrix but I am -giving them a fair chance knowing that umatrix might not have much of a -future even if its still quite functional still. I still like to install -ublock even with everything that comes builtin.
-So I got annoyed of librejs and other builtin plugins in icecat. Now I -just disable them because umatrix and ublock can do way more, except -jshelter: It is a api spoofer which is different from the others which -are contend blockers. Its useful for when you have to use javascript -heavy websites but still want to prevent alot of information from being -leaked. I set ublock to disable javascript by default and I set jshelter -to strict mode by default.
-
-Fun little trick: If video playback/youtube frame breaks on a website -just throw it into mpv to stream it from there. Sometimes to find the -media you can hit ctrl+i to pull up page info and use the media section -or in some cases you might have to dig around in the inspector. -

4.1.1. Installing

-You can find some newer builds here. The -offical version can be found -here. -

4.1.2. Hardening

-The magic of icecat is it makes zero requests to mozilla but its not too -hardened so you might wanta use a user.js. Check out -pyllyukko user.js. -

4.2. Palemoon and Basilisk

-Palemoon is a old firefox fork that uses a -different rendering engine so it can keep up with newer webstandards -while stilling keeping the old interface and support older plugins. -Basilisk use to be developed by -moonchild and was designed to be kind of like palemoon but based off a -bit newer version of firefox. The basilisk team broke off and is now -seprate from moonchild but still keeps in close contact with them.
-
-What version you choose is really up to you and what interface you like -more. Both of them are going to struggle to use javascript heavy -websites but its ok its I prefer disabling javascript whenever possible -and using umatrix to only let in what the site needs to function. -

4.2.1. Hardening

-Even though they are about as good as browsers get these days the -developers are still stupidos so you should -follow this guide. -Its also best you disable webrtc (only basilisk even supports webrtc out -of the two) and webgl along with other hardening because even though -they are based off older versions of firefox they still support the -modern features that make it easier for sites to fucking fingerprint -you. Basilisk is the only one that supports webrtc out of the two.
-
-To help hardened get yourself -a palemoon -user.js. It helps you stand out less by hiding the fact you are using -a weird old ass browser. Btw, for whatever fucking reason this user.js -seems to brick github issue pages so just keep that in mind. Though if -anything this just is another reason why real git sites like gitea and -codeberg are better.
-
-You can timezone spoof by setting TZ=UTC before launching: -


-sudo -s

-rm -rf /usr/bin/palemoon

-echo "#! /usr/bin/sh\nTZ=UTC /usr/lib/palemoon/palemoon \$@" > /usr/bin/palemoon

-chmod +x /usr/bin/palemoon
-

-Basilisk users can come up with their own hack instead of having their -hands held and gently walked through -

4.3. Ungoogled chromium

-Ungoogled chromium is what the name says, chromium without the google. I -still prefer to avoid anything chromim but if you really want to use a -chromium based browser without all the spyware shit you arent going to -get any better than this. It hella beats brave brave is fucking -terrible. There is a addon that lets you install addons from the chrome -store and update them without having to sign into google but I still -think the best option is just to manually install the addons to -completely avoid google.
-
-Ungoogled chromium isnt hardened at all by default. Its designed to be a -drop in replacement for chrome that is user friendly and doesnt break -anything. We dont do that here, for heaven fucking shake at least harden -it a little and to do that you can use -these -flags.
-
-With manifest v2 on the way out the future of chromium based browsers is -fucked. Mozilla is also doing shitty things so we are just in general -fucked. -

4.4. librewolf

-Librewolf is about the easiest way to get a decent hardened browser -setup. It still makes some requests to mozilla which kind of sucks. -

5. Command line

-Yes, the terminal is a GUI program. But I put it here because fuck -you.
-
-For a cool command line I use nerd fonts. My favorite is the hack nerd -font which can be installed with: -


-wget https://github.com/ryanoasis/nerd-fonts/releases/download/v3.3.0/Hack.zip

-unzip Hack.zip -d Hack

-sudo cp -r Hack /usr/share/fonts/
-

-More nerd fonts can be found here. -

5.1. Alacritty

-I only started using it very recently because I been using kitty for a -long time. I switched to alacritty because ssh in kitty is fucked up and -I found out that alacritty now has a option for toml files for the -config. The yml files was one of the biggest things keeping me away from -alacritty. -

5.2. zsh

-zsh is pretty cool though I been playing with fish a bit and been -thinking of switching to that. zsh has lots of cool things like vi keys -(even though I use emacs) and is somewhat compatable with bash to. -

5.3. vim

-For a long time I used neovim. I started using neovim becaues I wanted -vim to act more like a ide and have fancy shit. For most things I ended -up using ~~lite-xl~~ emacs more because well… emacs just make my autism -happy. Neovim ended up just being used for editing configs, quickly -throwing together scripts, crazy vim wizard edits… so I decided to -just ditch neovim (you can find my old config -here) and instead go -with a simple vimrc with only a few plugins.
-
-How dare someone use both emacs and vim! Shut your fucking piehole -stupido! -

6. Extras

-These are programs I at one point used, dont use much… that I wanted -to add. -

6.1. lite-xl

-I started using lite-xl because I wanted a simple little easy to config -graphical text editor. lite-xl is just that. I no longer have a need for -it as I get into emacs again as of writing this but still a great little -editor.
-
-On different screen sizes lite-xl may look bad and to fix it you need to -set the LITE_SCALE environment variable. -

6.2. vlc

-Yes, mpv is better. Yes, vlc sometimes has issues. But vlc is still -better than the default media player on most systems and has its fair -share of useful features. Even with mpv I still like to have vlc -installed just in case mpv breaks when I dont have internet and I like -its file converting features. The mobile version of vlc kicks ass. -

6.3. Evolution

-Evolution is one of the better mail clients out there. If for whatever -reason you need to use gmail or some other locked down shitty service -evolution has you covered. By default it uses the gnome style window -decorators but unlike most gnome apps it lets you use your desktop/WM -decorators instead. Its not as bad as most mail clients (looking at you -thunderbird) and it lets you at least hide most of that shit out of -the way. -